


Royal House of Thebes

by kaulayau



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, I wish they were more accessible but I’m not 100-percent complaining, Mythology References, Storytelling, and also bootlegs + cast recordings, it’s lit!, musicals have had a wonderful resurgence lately, so ye in that case, wait for me bros, ‘wedding song’ is such a bop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 16:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19066645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaulayau/pseuds/kaulayau
Summary: “You get to leave.” Though her voice wavers, the girl looks her, unfading, in the eye. Persephone sees the fatigue in her face. “You start anew.” She wonders what’s reflecting back.“The scent will stick.” Hadestown is a sedentary place. Persephone still has the cinders. She still has the heat. She still has the mud. It clings to her. Once she made her descent, the mines would be a part him forever. It is the nature of what comes underneath. “That isn’t true.”σύνοραPersephone listens to a story.





	Royal House of Thebes

**Author's Note:**

> straight bangers all the way

In Persephone’s barren stone garden is an empty, cracked wall — not unlike the wall her husband builds. It climbs with crumbling leaves and twigs. If she were younger; yes, she knows she would have had it decorated — embellished by Caryatid columns and ekphrastic paintings — but _when_ she was younger, she was clouded by the Underground mist. The crux of smog was once a novel, grand thing. And she thought that love was everything. In those days, Persephone wore no flowers in her hair, thinking that her spirit was strong enough to keep her merry.

But spirits do keep her merry. Spirits, and whiskey, and bottled-wine.

So it is: queenship is a figurative role. She marks letters and transcripts with a silver royal seal, and walks her garden’s dead and lifeless soil, all the while, keeps merry as she can.

The girl approaches her. She almost flits as she walks, her shadow leaving traces — she touches the empty wall with her thumb. The girl catches herself, stopping pace so curiously.

“A telegram,” she explains, handing it over, “from the man with two heads.”

Persephone takes it. She’ll open it soon. Janus has nothing straightforward to say.

The girl, Eurydice, looks at her.

She puts on a smile. “Songbird.” She’s heard her husband call her that, once or twice a passing moment.

“Lady of the Dead,” Eurydice says, half a whisper, half defiant. She crosses her arms over her chest, as if shivering.

What is there to defy? Persephone is known by many names. When mortals pray for harvest and health, they give her empress’s honors. “Is that what you’ve heard?”

“It’s what I’ve read,” says the girl.

“A reader, then,” Persephone muses. She saw Eurydice as more of a pragmatic being. Stories are for dreamers. The girl’s dreams appeared to be rooted in reality. “Of myths and gods?”

The girl nods with nervous slight. “When I was young.” She is quiet.

Persephone urges her along. “Such as?”

Eurydice is hesitant to respond. “The rods of Zeus, and thunderbolts. The seas. The sky. The world at fault. And then will follow soon the sun.”

No one ages in the Underworld. There are rarely willful visitors so entertaining. “Sister, won’t you tell me one?”

“A myth?” How youthful she is! How small and fearful and brave. It looks as if she was caught in the stars. What a lovely little thing.

“What else?” Persephone asks.

“Well,” Eurydice says, chin up, “I'm no bard.” She has no instruments. She has no lyre, no cithara, and no guitar. And children here have no voices.

“Your lover was.” A hopeful-eyed number — with a melody that made the ground weep. If he could do it, so could she. Though perhaps the cross isn’t so clean.

Eurydice flinches. “It’s harder than it looks,” she says, like mourning.  

“You haven’t tried,” says Persephone. She walks closer. The girl doesn’t move. “We’ll stay here always, you and I.” They might as well make use of that time. They might as well keep merry in the Darkroom.

“You get to leave.” Though her voice wavers, the girl looks her, unfading, in the eye. Persephone sees the fatigue in her face. “You start anew.” She wonders what’s reflecting back.

“The scent will stick.” Hadestown is a sedentary place. Persephone still has the cinders. She still has the heat. She still has the mud. It clings to her. Once she made her descent, the mines would be a part him forever. It is the nature of what comes underneath. “That isn’t true.”

The girl tilts her head. She is contemplative. They are seven strides apart. “A story, then.”

Persephone grins. “Just if you’d like.”

“Listen,” says Eurydice, gently, “please.”

Certainly. “All right.”

“I’ll begin.” The girl almost searches her mind, eyes downcast to the ground. Then the girl glances up again. “The Moon drove a vehicle of iron. She wore a cloak of bronze. She left the stars to bring the night. She fell in love. The sight of him engulfed her full. Endymion — Endymion. He wanted love forever. So Zeus granted him to sleep, and never awaken. The Moon shed tears. But all her years — Endymion.” Not quite the same as Orpheus. “Her one-and-only. Or so the books have told me.”

Fiction rings so wonderfully. Mortals twist and bend whatever they find so it might suit them. Persephone is charmed.

“Is that what you’ve read?” she says.

“What I've heard,” answers the girl, rocking back and forth on her heels like a child. Even Stoics are reposeful.

“Another.” Unyielding souls share such beautiful words.

“Another story?”

“Sure.”

She’s less guarded this time. “Clytemnestra was the wife of Agamemnon. Hatched with the radiant Helen of Troy. Second-best and second-chosen — she gave the War to her own employ. She took her pleasure from Aegisthus. He’d stay by her side. Now, Agamemnon killed their daughter so that the gods would bless them in battle. With her head as level as fire, Clytemnestra did not falter. When her husband return with Cassandra, she killed them both outright. Her daughter gone, she was furious. She had lost her every fight.”

“So grounded,” says Persephone. “Your memory serves you well.”

“Well enough.”

“You have one more to tell?”

“A satyr, Pan, saw a woman fair,” she begins. “Syrinx, a nymph, with hair that grew like river’s reeds. She ran from him. He made the chase. She begged the river to change her face to something safe. Pan caught her fast. She became a being out of grass — and then the satyr took her still. He made a flute — eternal trill.”

“Again.”

“What do you want to hear?” Eurydice says. “Penelope, above her loom, with tears — or Heracles, with mighty club? Athena and Pallas? Pygmalion, with love? Ariadne, left along the shore? Antigone, who wanted more?” She’ll gives her the choice. “Persephone was quiet.” Consider her interest piqued. “Daughter Earth, and all alone. The blood of blossoms at her feet — bloom and branches. She was grown out of hilltop — out of valleys.” What a meek sound! What a tuneful beat. “From the vine, she was famished.” What a tale! “She knew no one really loved her, too. A mother rarely qualifies. So what’s a girl to do?

“She sang with the children of the Ocean. She moved with the meadow at her side — Earthly Princess.” She has never been called an Earthly Princess. “An asphodel sprouted beside her.” Persephone remembers the asphodel. That itself, she knows, existed. “And the ground’s open jaw swallowed her wide.

“Hades had been struck by love — Eros, and his bow. Zeus gave his blessing. Gaea made petals low and hanging. He says nothing to Demeter or her daughter.

“Persephone fell, down to sleep, down to grief. The light of Hell grew ever brighter. Her mother screamed her name and scourged the word. The man who had stolen her was tall, and stern, and brief.” Persephone grins at that. “And he gave her thrones, and jewelry, and myrrh.

“Olympus lost its sacrifices. Demeter lost her gold. The price of captives did not please Persephone. So Hades built a garden, blank of bryony and roses. So famished was the Princess. Starving.

“She was found alone, once more. Zeus released her. She’d go home. Whatever for? Daughter Earth had no more home. Six seeds were garnered, felt, and sown. A pomegranate was the key. Springtime — we will never see until the Lady would return. And winter cycles forward. So what’s a girl to do but fall?” It has never gone quite like that. “Did I get it right?”

“Oh,” says Persephone, “not at all.” It was too touched by mortal hands. The girl seems ashamed. She shouldn’t be. “It doesn’t take away the things you’ve said.”

“I kept it,” she says, “just inside my head. When I was a girl, the stories came.”

“You’re still a girl.”

“I’m not the same.”

Had it really been so long from the beginning? Time doesn’t pass the same here. She’s accustomed to it.

But everyone else? For the girl?

“This is a story of Orpheus,” says the girl, “and Eurydice.” Persephone is not omnipotent. “Will I see him again? Will he return to me — when he dies?”

“I don’t know.” The process is fickle. There are too many documents to sign. “He’ll come to Elysium, or the Isles of the Blessed. They’ll assign him life. He’s a hero.”

“No less,” Eurydice says. “I’m not a hero, too?”

Why wouldn’t she be? She tried just as Orpheus had.

And yet here they stand. “I wish that I could vouch for you.” They are at an arm’s length in distance. “Come again. I’ll tell you how it all really went.” She’s no expert. But she has the idea of the truth.

“You will?”

“I promise. My present to you.”

Eurydice takes her leave.

Persephone reads Janus’s telegram.

She plans, later, to commission an artist for her garden wall.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading my dude! [come over and say hi on Tumblr and we can discuss the roles of women in Greco-Roman tragedies <3 and tell me your favorite song and we can sing it in a family-reunion-style karaoke party](https://kaulayau.tumblr.com)


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